Posted In: Gabe Joyes and Multi-Day Stage Racing
hey cogburner, thanks for your reply.
these are all interesting points.
you talk about a blood plasma decrease.
I’m super ignorant (and of course not a doctor), but I guess this could be noticed from some values on a blood test.
I’m asking this this because I recently got one after the week off.
hi everybody,
thanks a lot for all these precious answers and tips!
since here in Italy we are on total lockdown my treadmill love story goes on.
I am really curious about how my fitness level will be once we’ll start getting outside again when this crazy thing is gone..
It’s now my 3rd week of training only on the treadmill.
One thing I’m quite sure of: I kinda built lots of mental stamina during these wall/ipad staring weeks 🙂
scott, thanks for your reply and precious advices.
following your concern about the total volume of the week I decided to reduce the duration of the whole workout to 1h10′.
tomorrow will be an easy Z1 4h run.
so large that it reduces your volume in the following week.
can you elaborate more on this?
by what criteria are you reducing volume and how?
thanks
this is a crucial topic among our sports and lives. thanks for opening this thread.
I’ll try to give my contribution (and thoughts), hoping to help somebody and understand something for myself as well.
33yrs old, male, started running just 4-5yrs ago with the crazy approach of switching from half/marathons to ultras in just a few months.
all went good and in 3 years I also got several decent to good results with podium or near podium performances in some discrete races.
in my last year of races I embraced the crazy “too soon too much” approach in terms of diet: constantly under fueling, with daily low calories intake and being way too obsessed with my weight.
(compared to my usual healthy weight) I was like skin and bones.
short term results:
I was flying. at the end, especially in sports which involve elevation gain, its all about gravity: being light helps.
long term results:
injured, unhealthy, and constantly dead tired.
out of the games for almost one year.
advice: DONT DO THIS.
if you really do want to lose weight, do that with the help of a professional.
and please, do that with a conservative approach.
when in doubt, err on eating more than less than you think you need.
my final thought about this.
we are not pro runners and we have loads of other stressors in our lives in addition to training: jobs, families, daily obligations, inconsistent sleep patterns, etc…
adding up another (big) stress on our lives is nonsense.
and if at the beginning you’ll be tempted by all those Strava KOMs and kudos, at the end you’ll regret this stupid decision while being injured on the couch.
being light helps: gravity and physics won’t change.
BUT long term approach always pays out.
if you want to do that, do it wisely.
I think we would all reap much more benefits from focusing on training consistency and quality rather than those stupid digits on the scale.
(sorry for my bad english).
Hi everybody and thanks for all these messages about this topic.
I’m following this because (long story short): I’ve been struggling with low ferritin levels since 2-3 years now.
And (I know, that’s crazy) even without solving it I did 2 intense ultra trail seasons (= years) probably pushing my body beyond its limits.
Result = after my best season I probably ended up overtrained and still with low ferritin / iron levels whenever I introduced some volume/intensity.
I’ve been (and currently are) under doctor / specialists control but they never really solved this issue.
I still keep having ferritin levels in the 8-12 ng/mL range.
This even if I take iron supplements.
Scott(s), sorry for the late reply.
I had the chance to read your responses only today, thanks.
And yes, I think I misunderstood some basic notions on the book.
At the moment I’m trying to deal with a 4 cycle (soft) progression.
Given the fact that I never used this (wise) approach I really hope to reap the benefits in the future.
Also on this, Jack Daniels’ principles on increasing weekly mileage:
- Stay with one amount of running for at least 4 weeks
- Do not follow 10% weekly mileage increase rule
- Let your body adjust to a certain amount of stress before increasing volume
Dear Scott,
getting a feedback from you is really appreciated: thanks.
Regarding the past: I was basically using a mix of the same values I got from the lab at the beginning of the season and some sort of RPE.
Anyway I think that one thing that surely contributed to my problems was also a no-sense approach to training: not paying attention to recovery, always pushing and too much too soon.
I agree with you that beginning to test my self right now (even if we are in the early stages) would be a wise thing to do.
But most importantly in order to know when it’s time to add intensity (10% test) to a more structured program.
Hi Scott!
For sure this helps.. A LOT.
I think that the best answer to my doubts lays in your words:
I wonder why you want to do this if you are training for such an extreme event as 80km with 4500m in it
And I’m talking about the doubts I had in the last 2 years of training for these kind of events.
With my past coaches I always wondered about the reason of all that flat training during the whole season.
Flat speed works (6×1000, 500m, fartleks, etc..) but also recovery runs.
I’ve always been told that “fast & flat” works fine also for big vertical gain events and to stop focusing to much on uphill workouts.
Sometimes to me this sounded quite nonsense: one of my weakness have always been the uphill.. especially during the last climbs in such long events (8-9 hours).
How could I improve that skill with all those “flats” weeks (some times targeting less than 2500-3000m) in my legs/body?
I was (and I still am) quite a beginner to the sport, but maybe my intuition finds now proof in your approach.
Basically that’s the reason why I’m avidly reading TFTUA and trying to understand WHY and HOW to train.
I think that finally being able to lay down a training plan by myself and stick to it, is part of the achievements of this sport, thanks.
Hi Scott,
thank you very much for the help.
My concern is about the distribution of the vertical during the week.
Take the Late Base example I mentioned in my post, based on a week scheme according to page 353 in the book.
If I understand well, if my goal event is 80k 4500mD+, it would be good to hit that volume during 2 weeks in the building up phase.
Speaking only about vertical gain, if I look at the % of the total elevation (4500m), this would be the distribution:
d1 – off
d2 – 15% weekly vert = 675
d3 – 10% of time = 450m (??)
d4 – 10% of distance= 450m (??)
d5 – 10% weekly vert = 450
d6 – 15% weekly vert = 675
d7 – 40% weekly vert = 1800
As you can see there will be no space available for flat runs unless I double some days or dramatically increase the distance on those 10% days (d3 d4) in order to better distrubute the vertical gain and turn them in some kind of gentle / rolling terrain ones.
But, I’m sure, I’m doing something wrong with this.
Thanks!
any idea? 🙂
just, wondering (but maybe I’m, again, super-wrong).. is that meant to be to work with double workouts (AM/PM)?
Hi Scott(s),
thank you for clarifying!
This leads me to my next questions.
In the book you specify Early and Late Base Period.
Let’s say I’m planning 2-3 goal A (may-july) events for the next season, along with some B and C tune up races in the middle.
I’m now at the beginning of my Transition Period, so no worries about time, but what I would like to know is when to consider all those “B” (base) weeks Late or Early.
Do you mean “early” and “late” according to the macrocycles or the whole season?
Try to better explain: will be there some early and late B weeks for every macrocycles / “A” race or absolute early (september > february) and late (from march towards the end of the season) base weeks?
I hope you understand my doubt.
I also have another question regarding the main topic (weekly elevation gain) of my post.
Let’s say I’m planning one of the Base weeks leading up to my A race (80k 4500mD+).
The goal would be to do 2 Late Base (peak?) weeks of 4500D+ each.
From the example at page 353 i see this scenario.
weekly Elevation: 4500mD+ (100%)
d1 – off
d2 – 15% weekly vert = 675
d3 – 10% of time = ?
d4 – 10% of distance= ?
d5 – 10% weekly vert = 450
d6 – 15% weekly vert = 675
d7 – 40% weekly vert = 1800
in this way there are something like 900m left ti distribute on the days where the elevation is not a specified target (d3 and d4).
is this the right approach?
my concern here is: in my previous training seasons I’ve always added lots of runs on flat and gentle terrain, also adding speed workouts (some of them on track).
in this way I do not have the time and room for flat runs: I fear I’m missing something.
Thanks and sorry for all this confusion.
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